


First Offence

by Black_Crystal_Dragon



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale & Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Biblical Reinterpretation, Extended Scene, Footnotes, Gen, M/M, Noah's Ark, Pre-Arrangement (Good Omens), Pre-Friendship, Pre-Relationship, Protective Crowley, Scene: Flood in Mesopotamia 3004 BC (Good Omens), Softie Crowley (Good Omens), Technically a fix-it?, The Arrangement (Good Omens), Worried Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 22:29:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20071645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Crystal_Dragon/pseuds/Black_Crystal_Dragon
Summary: Mesopotamia in 3004 B.C. wasn’t the first time that Aziraphale and Crawley ran into one another after leaving the Garden of Eden. It was, however, the first time Aziraphale knowingly looked the other way when faced with one of the demon’s wiles.





	First Offence

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to my wonderful beta [Ice_Elf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ice_Elf/pseuds/Ice_Elf).

They have been standing side by side in the increasingly heavy rain for some time. The free show of Noah and his family loading increasingly skittish animals onto the boat stopped being quite so entertaining after the skies opened, and now the humans have gone back to their homes and businesses to avoid the bad weather, not that it will do them any good. The sandy dirt has already turned to slop between Crawley’s bare toes and water is just starting to seep over the tops of Aziraphale’s soles to flood his sandals. And that’s just the start.

Crawley glances at the angel beside him. Aziraphale is soaked down to the skin. His robe clings to him and his curls have drooped over his brow. Crawley isn’t faring any better. Either one of them could keep the rain off but neither of them has, and Crawley suspects they have the same reasons for choosing to endure this alongside the humans instead of letting the disaster filter by without touching them.

“Abducting children is bad, right,” he says over the relentless drum of raindrops.

“Of course it is,” Aziraphale frowns, but he’s distracted. The frown is just an increase, really, in the troubled expression he’s been wearing this whole time.

“Right, right,” Crawley agrees. He didn’t really need to ask – he just wants that look off the angel’s face. And also, to stick it to a God who thinks it’s fine to murder children.[1] “And, if someone was to, say, save some of the people who have been identified as sinners in the eyes of the Lord – those specifically chosen for divine punishment – that would also be bad, yes? Demonic, even.”

“What?” the angel says and finally turns towards him. Crawley pushes back his soaking hair and lifts his eyebrows. Aziraphale’s expression flickers between surprise and confusion, overlaid with a hint of suspicion. “I’m sorry – what are you suggesting?”

“I’m a demon. It’s my job to make trouble for your lot by whatever ways and means I consider necessary,” Crawley says, laying the words thick with implication. It’s easy, on this occasion, actually. Two wrongs that he can pass off to Hell as a malevolent scheme to frustrate the Almighty. The fact that they make, in Crawley’s opinion, a right is irrelevant. Soothing Aziraphale’s strange guilty disquiet is even more so, but might be a nice bonus.[2]

The angel regards him with slowly-dawning comprehension that warms the chill seeping into Crawley’s bones. He says hesitantly, “And it would be terribly evil of you to – to circumvent the execution of God’s justice …”

“Oh, yes,” Crawley agrees, answering what was very nearly a question. “Positively wicked. Probably get a commendation.”

“Oh,” the angel exhales shakily, entirely too pleased, but then his face falls and he moans, “Oh, but I’ll have to warn the humans what you’re up to!”

He is so earnest and worried, and Crawley is reminded of how he’d looked on the walls of Eden: nervous about – well, everything, but in particular the rules that govern what he should and shouldn’t do on Earth, which seem to be as vague and open to interpretation as Crawley’s set.

“If you can get them to answer their doors at night, during a storm,” he says. It ought to be a temptation, but his voice is too soft, too genuine as he offers up the excuse Aziraphale so desperately wants. It feels dangerous. He clears his throat and waves an expansive hand towards the boat and the large wooden props that will hold it upright until the waters rise enough to support the sides. “And you wouldn’t want me spoiling _this_, would you? God’s grand design to save the virtuous and everything. Be a disaster if a demon got on board and started making mischief.”

He has absolutely no intention of interfering with Noah’s boatload of evacuees, but Heaven isn’t to know that. Technically neither is Aziraphale, though from the gratitude in his eyes he knows quite well what Crawley is doing.

“Well, I _do_ have a duty to make sure that Noah and his family get on their way safely … Yes, I’d better stay here and – and make sure none of your cunning wiles affect the, ah, the Almighty’s plan,” Aziraphale says, building up from apprehensive to almost stern towards the end. He’s not a very good actor: when he’s finished, he gives Crawley a searching look as if to say, _Was that all right?_

He smiles at the angel’s effort, hopelessly endeared. “Very wise. There’s no getting past you, I see that now.”

“Indeed.” Aziraphale casts a glance upwards towards the iron sky and is left blinking rainwater from his eyes. “So, you’d better, um, begone – before I’m forced to take more direct action.”

Crawley’s smile stretches wider at the clumsy subterfuge. It’s easy enough to parse that Aziraphale really means, _Hurry up and get going_. He’s probably right: there are a lot of settlements in the surrounding area and water is already lapping over his toes.

“Right you are,” he says. “I’ll see you around, angel.”

“Ah, y-yes,” Aziraphale stammers, obviously at a loss on how to respond. He watches as Crawley takes a slow step back, visibly wrestling with himself, then blurts out, “Until next time.”

He turns quickly back to the boat but keeps shooting sideways glances at Crawley that he probably thinks are subtle. Crawley manages to catch his eye anyway and nods in friendly acknowledgement before he turns away and slopes off towards the nearest village.

When he looks back, he catches Aziraphale staring after him through the sheets of rain.

###### Footnotes

1\. An argument could be made, he supposes, that the ones of running-about age _could_ have committed offences serious enough to warrant the death penalty. (He doubts they actually have.) But what about the babies, Crawley would like to know. They’re babies! They _can’t_ have done anything to invoke the wrath of the Almighty – they can’t even hold their heads up on their own! The only possible mark against them is ancestral sin, and Crawley feels much the same way about that as he does about the whole Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil situation: in essence, that it’s stupid and makes no sense. [ return to text ]

2\. There might not be a way to save anybody. God is all-seeing and all-knowing and therefore must be aware of his idea even now – and could have something in motion to thwart him – but he can try. [ return to text ]

**Author's Note:**

> I like to think of this as maybe the initial baby-step towards the Arrangement. :)
> 
> This was heavily inspired by several fics I read recently that referenced Crowley saving children during the Flood. It wasn’t a main part of the plot of those fics, but they gave me this idea.


End file.
